


Shell Game

by togekissies



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Getting Together, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 20:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10771734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togekissies/pseuds/togekissies
Summary: Mika is a lot of things: pretty, talented, anti-homework, and entirely too cool to give the time of day to the weird volleyball nerd in her class. Naturally, he wants her to teach him magic tricks.





	Shell Game

**Author's Note:**

> haha wow, i wrote this nearly a year ago. decided to fix it up and post it because i still love daishou/mika.
> 
> when mika was finally introduced, i thought it would be really interesting if she not only knew about daishou's sleight-of-hand tricks in order to win, but encouraged them. haikyuu is full of really nice, honest girls (with varying levels of quirkiness), so i wanted to explore a girl who isn't so nice, but still have her be sympathetic. sort of like what furudate tried to do with daishou. i hope i made it work!

1.

Storm clouds blanket the sky, and Mika finds herself drawn to the window when the rain starts. Her classroom overlooks the track field. She wastes a lot of time in class gazing out the window and judging the students outside. The track looks so strange in the storm, dark and empty and wet.

Someone clatters into the classroom. “I got the stupid thing you asked for,” Daishou, the weird kid her class, says. He’s holding a neatly collapsed cardboard box away from his body, like he finds recycling distasteful.

“I just need one side of it,” Mika says. “But it looks big enough, so, good job, I guess.”

Daishou rolls his eyes and drops the box on a desk. He crosses his arms and looks at her pointedly.

Mika refuses to be intimidated by the weirdo she and her friends unanimously voted the least cute boy in their year. She reaches in her bag, into a hidden pocket, and pulls out a small pocket knife, which she uses to cut out the biggest side of the box. She spares a glance at Daishou through her bangs, and is pleased to see him wide-eyed. Knives aren’t exactly something cute girls tend to keep on their person.

“Open a window, would you?” Mika says sweetly. “It’s a tad stuffy in here.”

“It’s _raining_ ,” Daishou says, exasperated.

“So? You stink so bad I’m about to pass out.”

He grumbles—a lot—but he gets up and opens a window. A cool, damp breeze fills the room, ruffling papers. He returns to his seat, across from hers, and crosses his arms. “I can’t believe no one else has noticed your horrible personality yet,” he says.

“Why, thank you!” Mika chimes. “It’s unlike you to compliment me.”

Daishou remains stony faced, but he can’t hide the way he bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling, not from Mika—she’s simply too good at reading people. “Well? Let’s get on with it.”

He isn’t exactly the type of audience she wants. Don’t get her wrong, she loves the attention and admiration she gets for her magic tricks, and her classmates practically beg her to show off during breaks. If some found themselves with a little less money in their pockets afterwards, she can’t say she didn’t warn them her tricks are impossible to crack. Daishou’s eagerness is usually something she can work with. But if he were just curious, she wouldn’t have told him to meet her in their classroom after volleyball practice was over, forcing herself to be near him when he’s sweaty and gross.

She remembers the look on Daishou’s face when he saw her _accidentally_ knock down the class nerd’s bag, spilling the his papers, and snag his notes when she helped him pick up the mess. The blackmail material made Daishou radiate with glee. Why he decided to use it for magic lessons, she’ll never know. She hopes, in vain, he’s a few cards short of a full deck.

Mika reaches in her bag again, and this time pulls out three disposable cups and a pink marble. She places the cups upside-down on the cardboard, in a line. “This is called a shell game,” she says. “The object is to find the marble.”

“Okay,” Daishou says, his nose scrunched up. Normally Mika’s magic tricks involve cards or pulling coins out of ears, so she imagines he thinks she’s messing with him. Well, she _is_ , but he asked her to, weirdo.

“Ready?” she asks. Daishou nods. Mika holds up the marble in her hand so he can see, then puts it under the middle cup. She starts switches the cups around, swapping left for right, middle for right, middle for left, over and over in random patterns for around ten seconds. She lifts her hands off the cups. “Guess where the marble is.”

“Easy,” Daishou says, and he picks up the middle cup. The pink marble rolls out from under it. Daishou gives her a look. “I thought you were good at this.”

“Be patient,” Mika tells him, smiling. “It gets harder from here on out.”

Daishou raises his eyebrows in disbelief. That just makes her smile wider. She replaces the marble under the middle cup and starts sliding them around once more. This time she goes faster, sliding the cups closer to her edge of the cardboard and then, the moment of truth—she lifts the end of the cup with the marble under it just enough for the marble to roll out and quickly covers it with a second cup, all done out of Daishou’s line of sight.

“Okay. Find the marble,” she says.

Daishou looks almost bored when he picks up the cup to her left, which he then nearly drops because the marble isn’t there. “I—must have lost track of it,” he says, shocked.

“That’s easy to do!” Mika says cheerily. She picks up the middle cup, revealing the marble. “Maybe you’ll get it next time?”

Daishou’s jaw sets. He hasn’t realized Mika is baiting him. “I won’t lose,” he mumbles, and Mika snorts because that line is _so_ embarrassing.

He does lose, though. He can’t find the marble the next round, or the one after that. “Tough luck,” Mika tells him, expecting him to be frustrated.

There’s a reason she’s pegged Daishou as the weird one, though, and she’s proven right when he looks more excited than peeved. “You’re moving it,” he says. “That’s how you stole what’s-his-face’s notes, I bet. How are you doing that? I have to know.”

“I’m not moving it,” she says cooly. She doesn’t like being reminded he caught her stealing. Daishou has a clever glint in his eye that’s starting to worry her. “But, to prove it to you, I’ll do it one more time, okay?”

She does, and she lets him find it. “You let me do that,” he declares.

“Yes, you’re very clever,” she deadpans. A wave of irritation washes over her. She feels a burning need to show him just how good she is. She covers the marble with the right cup and shuffles them again, but just when she stops, she sneezes loudly, knocking over the cup on the left. “Oh, sorry,” she says, sniffing for emphasis. “Go on and guess.”

Daishou has seen under the empty left cup when she knocked it under, so he looks at the remaining two. “This one,” he says, picking up the middle cup with confidence.

It’s empty. “Too bad,” Mika says, lifting up the left cup to reveal the marble.

Daishou is floored. “How did you do that?” he asks, reverent.

“It’s easy to find out on the internet.”

“But I want _you_ to show me.”

Mika preens. It’s hard to not appreciate undivided attention. “I usually don’t reveal my secrets,” she says, “but I guess I can make an exception for you.”

Her eager new student smirks, which transforms his boring, babyish face into something way more venomous. Mika decides maybe he’s not as much of a loser as she first assumed.

“So, my dear pupil,” she says with gravitas. He glances up at her. “Now, I’ll teach you the art of sleight of hand.”

“Wonderful,” Daishou says, slithery and devious. A delighted shiver goes down Mika’s spine, and, for the first time, she wonders why it took her so long to be willing to talk to him.

 

2.

Mika drops her schoolbag and slides into a chair in one smooth motion. She leans so far to the side she’s shoulder-to-shoulder with Daishou. “Whatcha watching?”

It’s volleyball again, that much she can see. He’s always preoccupied with volleyball, and sometimes the only place she can catch him is the smelly volleyball clubroom. The gymnasium in the video isn’t the same as the tiny one on campus or the one in Sendai they go to for tournaments—it’s much, much larger. Though Daishou’s laptop is muted, Mika can practically hear the cacophony of the humongous crowd.

“Last year’s inter-high,” Daishou answers. He pauses the video and grins at her, lopsided and smug. “I heard from a reliable source I’m top pick for captain of the team next year. And _I’m_ going to be the one to lead Nohebi to nationals. So, I’m doing a little research.”

“Oh, neat,” Mika says, not bothering to act impressed. She considers Daishou as a captain. Captains of sports teams are always cool, in her experience. They’re leaders, burdened with responsibility, boring—but Daishou is weird, not boring. It’s kind of hard to reconcile the two ideas.

“Not that it’s set in stone or anything,” Daishou mumbles, seemingly picking up on her disinterest. He resumes the video.

Mika leans against him, tilting her head so her recently dyed hair spills over his shoulder. “I think you’ll be a great captain,” she says, batting her eyes.

“Really?” Daishou clears his throat. “I mean, yeah. I’m the obvious choice.”

“I don’t know any other members of the volleyball club as clever as you are.”

“You don’t know any other club members period,” Daishou says. “But if you did, you’d know just how right you are.”

He keeps glancing away from the screen to look at her when he talks. She smiles at him sweetly, and he smiles back, but looks away. He’s being shy. Boo.

“I miss you in class this year,” Mika says. She may be laying it on a bit thick, but at least she’s being honest. She was excited to have more of her friends in her class this year, but she can’t exchange glances with them during lessons to silently mock whoever is speaking.

“Our classrooms aren’t that far away. I can hear your classmates screaming whenever you dazzle them with magic tricks.”

“Yeah, well, I think they’re getting bored of the same old thing.” Mika gives an exaggerated sigh. She isn’t lying, however dramatic she may seem. Her profits from tricking her classmates have slowed to a trickle. “I’d _love_ to practice some new tricks with my star pupil, but we haven’t hung out in soooo looooong!”

“I’ve been busy, you know how it goes.”

“You should make time for me soon,” she says.

“I will,” Daishou promises. “You can show me all of your terrible new tricks, and I can adapt them for volleyball. Just like the good old days.”

Volleyball, volleyball, volleyball—it’s like that’s all he ever thinks about. Mika doesn’t remember him talking about volleyball so incessantly when they were first years. The match he’s watching annoys her more than it did when she first walked in the room.

Mika doesn’t let her irritation show, though. She continues to smile sweetly. She leans back, puts her hands in her lap, crosses her legs—and Daishou’s eye dart down at the moment. He turns his head away, ears going red. Mika’s smile turns wicked.

“Suguru,” she says, “what’s wrong?”

Daishou’s eyes snap to her. “Wh-what?” he says, laughing nervously. “We’re using first names now?”

“I think we’re at that point now, don’t you?” Mika continues smiling. She lets Daishou blink his way into relative calm, then she says, “Besides, I’m not gonna call the guy who’s taking me out on a date this Saturday by his last name.”

“A da—a date?”

Daishou looks floored. He stares at her, wide eyed and leaving his laptop ignored. Mika smiles. She’s got him. “Is that okay? You’re not too busy, right?”

“No!” Daishou says, voice cracking. “I mean—no, no I’m not busy. I’m never too busy for a—a date.”

“I’m glad,” Mika says. She stands up and grabs her bag. “I’m looking forward to it, Suguru.”

Suguru opens his mouth, but he doesn’t manage to say whatever it is because Mika kisses him on the cheek. He blushes bright red.

“See you tomorrow!” Mika says.

“Yeah,” Suguru croaks, “see you tomorrow.”

Mika grins and skips backwards to the door, which opens before she can reach for the knob. Some guys in Nohebi volleyball club jackets are standing on the other side of the door. They all look equally as shocked to see her as she is to see them. “Oh, excuse me,” she says. Her voice seems to break the spell and they scramble to get out of her way.

They stare at her in stunned silence as she walks away, and as she rounds the corner she can hear one of them say, “You lucky bastard!” To Suguru, she assumes. She hears Suguru’s voice next but can’t make out the words. He’s probably bragging, knowing him. He always recovers quicker around an audience.

When she’s far enough away, Mika leans against the wall and sinks to the floor. “Oh my god,” she whispers to herself. “I did it. I actually did it!”

She presses a hand to her heart, which is beating a million miles per hour. Her cheeks hurt from smiling. She can’t feel any lipgloss on her lips, which means she kissed it all off on Suguru’s face, and, wow, she did _that_ too.

Mika allows herself a few minutes to bask in her victory, then she stands up and pulls out her phone. Just like Suguru, she’s got some bragging to do.

 

3.

One thing Mika somehow forgot about volleyball matches: they’re _loud._

The players on the court are always shouting to each other about one touches or calling for sets or whatever, and the refs are blowing their whistles every second, and don’t get Mika started on the cheering of the crowd—she feels like her eardrums may burst.

Of course, part of her berates herself for saying her ignorance is forgetfulness. The fact remains that she’s only gone to a couple of Nohebi’s volleyball matches, and even then she ignored most of it in favor of chatting with her friends. It may never have been this loud before. It may have everything to do with how this is Nohebi’s last chance to make it to nationals this year.

Once again Mika has some friends with her. On her left she has Jun, who she’s known since they were first years and who shot up like a weed last year. She’s still awkward with her taller frame. On Mika’s other side is Saki, who is a first year in university now. She’s too busy with coursework to hang out with Mika and Jun as often as she did when she was in Nohebi, but she’s become much more vibrant.

Mika adores Jun and Saki. They’ve had some good times together, gotten into some trouble together, and even argued together. Whatever it is, they’ve always been loud with constant chatter. Today, however, none of them say a word. If they weren’t sitting in the very back their lack of excitement would draw attention to them.

One of the members of the opposing team, the one in the red jersey, gets injured and is taken out of the game. This is good, Mika thinks. An injury does half of Suguru’s psychological warfare for him.

“So why—” Saki cuts herself off and glances at Mika. She looks guilty. “Sorry. Why are a couple of them wearing different colors?”

Mika’s mind scrambles to find the answer. She knows she’s heard this before, she _knows_ , why can’t she remember? “It’s got something to do with their position... I think.”

“Oh,” Saki says, then they’re quiet again.

Mika tries to follow what’s going on, but the volleys go too fast for her to understand. Sometimes she loses track of the ball, only to have it resurface on the floor on the opposite side of the net. She tries to keep her eyes on Suguru the entire time, but he’s running all over the court and he disappears in a flurry of Nohebi jerseys too often for her liking. And, suddenly, the refs whistle loudly and all the players switch sides of the court. Oh. The first set ended, and she had no idea. Mika checks the scoreboard—Nohebi’s opponents, Nekoma, won the set. It’s best two out of three, Mika remembers from Nohebi’s first match.

“Nekoma.” A hazy memory comes back to her. Suguru had ranted for a full thirty minutes during one of their dates that summer about this guy with shitty bedhead. “I think they’re some kind of rivals to us.”

“Well, they don’t look like much,” Jun says, huffing dismissively. “They all look like they belong to a weird gang, not a volleyball team.”

“Yeah!” Saki chimes in. “They look like a bunch of losers. Our guys can wipe the floors with them. They just got lucky this round, that's all.”

“I guess so...” Mika says, staring out at the court. Suguru hated this team, that much was obvious. But he also always admitted they were strong.

Saki and Jun pick up on Mika’s melancholy, and they don't say anything else. Mika can tell they keep exchanging glances over her head, but she ignores them.

Mika tries to focus on the match, she really does. Their cheering classmates in front of them are distracting, and she can't see the court well from the back, and, and—she can't help but wonder if Suguru wouldn't be struggling now if she hadn't done her best to distract him from practice. All that nagging, all the arguments, all the times she ignored him for a week after he forgot something minor, she _hates_ that she can't stop thinking about it. She hates him too, just a little bit. She hates him for making her hate herself.

They reach the halfway point of this set and switch courts. Mika stands up. “I’m going down there,” she says.

“What?” Jun says as Mika brushes past her.

Mika doesn't have to shove people out of the way to get the the railing. She stands off to the side of the cheering squad. They're louder here, but she isn't bothered as much. Saki and Jun join her a few seconds later.

She can see Suguru a lot better from here. He looks so different from the scrawny little kid who bugged her at every opportunity to show him her magic tricks. He grew even taller, but he's filled out and grown into his height. Somehow the court is the only place he doesn't look awkward. He's constantly in motion, running this way and that, digging in to receive, and when he jumps for a spike, damn, it's like he's flying.

Mika's hands tighten on the railing.

Suguru loves volleyball. He's made it into a goal, and he's worked for it his entire high school career, and she doesn't have anything like that so she didn't understand until now. All she does is hide bad grades and self hatred with magic tricks and gossip.

The game goes on, and Jun and Saki keep asking her questions about volleyball. Mika’s proud she remembers both teams hit the ball back and forth over the net is called a volley, but she can't remember why the setter position is important. The rhythm of the game calms her down, even as the tension in the gymnasium grows.

And finally—they lose.

The disappointment is palpable. Even Saki and Jun deflate. Suguru, however, is the picture of composure. The only reason Mika knows he's just as torn up as everyone else is because he doesn't spot her in the stands when he leads his team in a bow of thanks. The team leaves the court, then the audience trickles out of the stands. Mika stands there a little longer, hands on the railing and back straight.

“It's really cool,” Mika says.

“What is?” Jun asks.

“Volleyball,” Mika says. It's not a lie, but that's not all she thinking about.

Saki and Jun exchange glances again, like they think Mika won't notice. “Are you ready to go?” Saki asks. “There's a cute store around here, and I want a new phone case ‘cause mine broke last week—”

“You guys go on ahead,” Mika interrupts. They look at her with concern. She smiles reassuringly. “I’ll catch up later. Don't worry.”

Saki takes her hand and squeezes it. “Call us if he's being an asshole.”

“Yeah, we’ll beat him up!” Jun agrees.

Mika laughs. She wonders if these two have always been able to read her so well, and, if so, if they’ve known all along how tormented she's been over the breakup. “Thank you,” she says, and she means it. They smile at her then leave, hand in hand.

Mika looks back down on the court, which starts filling up with another group of nationals hopefuls—middle schoolers, it looks like. She watches them for a moment, then goes to find her moping ex-boyfriend and own up to her mistakes.


End file.
